Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

Last week, a team of engineers at the Nevada National Security Site detonated an explosive device underground in hopes of improving the U.S. ability to detect lower-yield nuclear explosions elsewhere in the world.  A National Nuclear Security Administration-led team conducted what the agency called a “subsurface chemical explosion” in the P tunnel in Area 12 […]

On Thursday, after a two-week squabble about who to elect as speaker, the House of Representatives passed a bill to fund defense and civilian nuclear programs for the rest of fiscal year 2024. Civilian nuclear programs at the Department of Energy and elsewhere would essentially remain flat under the House’s bill. Active nuclear weapons programs […]

Future arms control agreements will be non-treaty accords that begin with “stealthy” conversations between diplomats willing to buck the status quo, a retired State Department official said in Washington at a government-sponsored forum named for him. Even before China began expanding its nuclear arsenal and Russia invaded Ukraine for the second time this century, it […]

With long-timer Jessie Hill Roberson’s Wednesday retirement from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, the federal government’s independent safety watchdog for nuclear-weapon sites is down to two members. Chair Joyce Connery and Vice Chair Thomas Summers are the only two active members of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), leaving the nominally five-member panel […]

Two businessmen with companies doing work for the Department of Energy’s Kansas City National Security Campus allegedly carried out a kickback scheme involving nuclear weapons parts, the Department of Justice announced Thursday. Michael Clinesmith, 67, of Kansas, allegedly sought and received kickbacks and bribes over at least a decade from Richard Mueller, 63, of Missouri, […]

Despite worries within the nuclear security enterprise of “massive uncertainties” in its delivery date, the Scorpius x-ray imager might actually be ready later this decade, a spokesperson for the Sandia National Laboratories said last week. “The deterministic date…is to have Scorpius operational before the end of calendar 2027, with subcritical experiments to start in calendar […]

A bipartisan group of senators this week went public with a request that President Joe Biden (D) compel the Navy to release a study they say is critical to oversight of a trilateral agreement to provide Australia with nuclear-powered attack submarines. “We understand that a Submarine Industrial Base 2025 (SIB-25) study from the U.S. Navy […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s drive to make new nuclear-weapon cores has delayed disposal of old ones, according to an agency statement emailed to the Exchange Monitor on Tuesday. Amid the expansion of the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s PF-4 Plutonium Facility and early work on South Carolina’s planned Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility, which combined are supposed […]

In a hearing Thursday, members of the Senate Armed Services Committee lauded a new report that recommends expanding the U.S. nuclear arsenal to counter Russian and Chinese nuclear weapons. The testimony of the leaders of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States was “very compelling,” Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said during […]

A House commission studying U.S. strategic forces fully backs modernization of the U.S. nuclear enterprise, including by building a third nuclear shipyard to successfully deter both Russia and China, according to a report published Thursday.  The Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States recommends funding “NNSA’s recapitalization efforts, including weapons science, design […]

While assembling a nuclear weapon in mid-September, technicians at the Pantex Plant in Texas crossed a pair of color-coded and labeled wires, an error that made it past a quality control inspection, according to a report from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.  During the week of September 15, Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS, which runs […]

The Department of Energy’s watchdog found no evidence that personnel at the Office of Secure Transport abused their administrative leave in a recent investigation.  The DoE Inspector General received allegations in March that Office of Secure Transport (OST) – the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) internal paramilitary force tasked with transporting nuclear weapons and material […]

The last hydrogen fluoride cylinder was recently removed from the Y‑12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., clearing the way for a new uranium-purification technology for nuclear weapons that could switch on in 2024. Hydrogen fluoride was used in an antiquated wet-chemistry conversion and purification process for making enriched uranium metal at the plant’s […]

Fluor’s contract for the management and operations of the U.S. Naval Nuclear Laboratory was extended for five years through 2028, the company announced on Monday.  The contract had a five-year base period of performance, with a five-year option. Fluor announced the option trigger in a statement. Awarded in 2018 by the National Nuclear Security Administration […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration did not consider certain cost and radioactive waste analyses when it decided to make plutonium pits in New Mexico and South Carolina, the agency said in a court filing this week.  It is the latest turn in a two-year-old lawsuit filed in the federal district court for South Carolina in […]

A new team of nuclear experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived at Ukraine’s embattled Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Plant on Oct. 4, the twelfth rotation since the agency established a permanent presence at the site in September 2022. Teams from the International Atomic Energy Agency have been working with Russian and Ukrainian officials, as well […]

Christopher Roscetti, the former technical director for the government’s independent nuclear safety watchdog, is now the Department of Energy’s deputy director for environmental health and safety, according to a DOE website.  Roscetti, a career civil servant, assumed the No. 2 post for DOE’s Office of Environment, Health, Safety, and Security in July after serving more […]

Centrus Energy Corp. started enriching energy dense uranium fuel using a new centrifuge cascade at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site near Piketon, Ohio, the company said Wednesday. Centrus, Bethesda, Md., marked the milestone with a tour of the event that included Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk. The company thinks it will begin retrieving […]

Russia is considering withdrawing from the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty ratified by the United Nations in 1996, Reuters, ABC News and other outlets report.  Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the lower house of Russia’s State Duma, made the announcement on Friday. Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier had warned that Moscow could rescind its ratification […]

KNOXVILLE – If Honeywell is gunning for the contract to run the Pantex Plant when the National Nuclear Security Administration splits the landlord deals for that site and Y-12 in Oak Ridge, Tenn., next year, the company is treating its involvement like a state secret. “I’ll answer the way that I would have answered that […]

KNOXVILLE — Design of the Savannah River Plutonium Pit Processing Facility is half finished and the facility could be built by 2032, though the date is not set in stone, a senior contractor executive said here Tuesday at an industry gathering. “You’ve got to put a stake in the sand at some point,” Dennis Carr, […]

KNOXVILLE – More than half of the employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Production Office, which encompasses both the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee and the Pantex Plant in Texas, have been working for the nuclear enterprise for less than five years, according to agency and contractor officials. There are about 12,000 employees […]

The Navy has successfully launched the 191st Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic missile during a shakedown cruise of the USS Louisiana, marking the boat’s readiness for deployment.  Northrop Grumman, which builds the solid rocket motors that power the Trident, announced the successful launch on Oct. 2. The test was one element of the Navy’s Demonstration […]

If another nuclear arms control treaty replaces the New START treaty that expires in 2026, the National Nuclear Security Administration will need new technologies to keep track of Russia’s large and widely dispersed nuclear arsenal, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.  The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has started investing in […]

A federal safety watchdog for the Department of Energy continues to look for someone to fill its vacant executive director of operations post and discussed the search in closed session last week. On Sept. 26, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) held a “nonpublic collaborative discussion” on candidates for the position, according to a […]

The United Kingdom awarded contracts worth $4.9 billion total to three British companies to design and manufacture the future SSN-AUKUS nuclear-powered attack submarines. The U.K. Ministry of Defense signed the Detailed Design and Long Leads phase of work on Oct. 1 with BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and Babcock to “progress the program through the design, prototyping […]